Has Arnold Killed The Special Session on Health Care?

by Robert in Monterey [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]

Last week Arnold announced his health care reform plan for the special session - a plan that Anthony Wright of Health Access California describes as his January plan, except worse. By insisting on an individual mandate with few subsidies and hardly any cost controls or care guarantees, Arnold offered a plan that was certain to satisfy nobody.

As a result of this craptacular plan, as today's LA Times reports, "Unions give up on governor's health plan":

Abandoning their facade of cooperation, a coalition of California labor unions and consumer groups says it is gearing up a campaign to discredit Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's healthcare proposal as too expensive for many workers.

Organizers say they will trail Schwarzenegger throughout California to challenge and rebut him, hold prayer vigils and news conferences, press elected officials to oppose his proposal and run critical ads on television. They plan to deride the governor's program as the "Arnold Middle-Class Gouge."

The coalition, which includes most major unions and two prominent consumer groups -- Health Access California and Consumers Union -- has hired one of the nation's most aggressive Democratic strategists to run the campaign [that would be Chris Lehane - RinM].

The campaign represents a break from labor leaders' strategy, which had been to encourage Schwarzenegger's efforts while gently prodding him in their direction. Leaders say they no longer believe that the governor will ever agree to their priorities without pressure.

Jordan Rau's coverage of health care in California has been excellent, but I think he's been saddled with a bad headline here. It's not the unions who are giving up on the governor - it's Arnold who gave up on them, and on the state, when he reasserted his non-starter plan.
The article notes that "labor leaders walked out" of a meeting last week with the governor and his staff over healthcare, specifically the insufficient employer fees and lack of subsidies. Lehane is crafting a strategy that points out the obvious - that individual mandates are a recipe for widespread financial ruin:

Starting Wednesday, they plan to publicly argue that Schwarzenegger's plan is unaffordable for many. It would require individuals earning more than $35,735 and families of four making more than $72,275 to buy insurance without any subsidies for the costs. Unions say those thresholds are at least $10,000 too low.

(Personally I think even higher thresholds won't help make an individual mandate workable, but the unions are right that these thresholds are not very helpful.)

With the shift to outright opposition, it is difficult to see how a health care deal will be concluded this session - especially as Arnold, captive of the Cal Chamber of Commerce (as Brian and Julia have explained), is highly unlikely to move in the direction that Dems and labor would like him to.

Instead this, like everything else in California politics these days, is headed for the ballot:

The labor groups are threatening to bring their own proposal to the voters in a ballot initiative next year. Itwould place on employers most of the financial responsibility for providing insurance on employers, as did the Democratic healthcare overhaul vetoed by Schwarzenegger last week.

A similar measure that passed the Legislature in 2003 was narrowly rejected the following year in a referendum brought by business groups, but labor groups thinks Californians' concern about health care has risen to the extent that the public would accept such a measure now.

And of course, when we speak of taking things to the ballot - a costly project in terms of money, effort, and time - it raises the question of why we should not instead expend that effort toward a successful single-payer ballot initiative.